


Around The Campfire: Preliminaries: Pardon Me, Wife

by silveradept



Category: Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
Genre: Gen, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12975384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Two entries in the preliminary rounds of "Around The Campfire", a new television show that pits pseudonymous authors and their stories against each other for a cash prize.





	1. No Pardon For The Wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartequals (savvygambols)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvygambols/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A faith healer lays bare the secrets of the people would would come to him for help.

“Welcome back, everyone, to Around The Campfire, where our contestants are competing to tell the story that you think is best. There’s a cool cash prize for the winner, which might be a nice relief from the last tale we heard," the Host said, shuddering in remembrance. "I don't think many of us will be sleeping too comfortably in our beds tonight. Maybe our next contestant will have something lighter on his mind to help bring the mood up. Remember, all of our contestants have adopted pseudonyms so that you won’t be swayed by who they are, just the story they’re telling. Let’s keep the show rolling, then. Here's our next contestant, the Pardoner. A big round of applause, please!"

An otherwise unremarkable man, with slicked-back hair and a black suit that wouldn't have been out of place on a Sunday-morning church show stepped onto the stage. Unlike many of the contestants that day, the presence of the stage lights, cameras, and studio audience didn't seem to bother him at all.

"Thank you," he said to the Host as the applause settled into silence. "I've got a short story for all of you tonight, but I thought I would start by telling you a little bit about myself and what I do for a living. I grew up in a tiny, conservative town – the kind that has six churches on every block, where everyone knows everyone and is all too happy to gossip about sin and indiscretion happening in their God-fearing town, even as they claim they're holier than everyone else around."

The Pardoner took a sip of the water bottle on the stool next to him before continuing. 

"Many of you have probably never seen me, unless you are the kind of person who frequents tent revivals and knows what the 700 in the 700 Club actually means. My parents were convinced that I was going to be a minister and bring the word of God to all the heathen masses outside our town and convert them with the power of my testimony and faith. There was no room for any other pursuit, of course, and so I dutifully collected my degrees in divinity."

"At this point in my life, I had been exposed to enough hypocrisy in the company of supposedly godly men that I knew there was no way that I could continue on that path. Instead, I found a more...lucrative way of exposing the hypocrites wherever I went." 

He took another sip, although this one seemed more for dramatic effect than to slake his thirst. 

"I became a faith healer." He paused for a moment to let the information sink in.

"A con man, you mean," heckled a woman from the audience.

"Precisely," the Pardoner returned without batting an eye. "There are plenty of people in the world so desperate to hear they're good people and that God loves them and forgives them, even as they do terrible, awful things, that they'll listen to just about anyone with the message they want to hear."

Some of the audience members shifted uncomfortably in their seats at the candor on display.

"I've given sermons a-plenty on this vice or that. Gluttony is horrible, drinking is bad, and gambling is the worst. And I can back it up with chapter and verse. Like Samson or Lot or Herod. Golden calves and slavery stories and famines. You know the saying about fools and their money? There is nobody in the world who is easier to convince to give their money away than a fool with a guilty conscience. If you can convince them there's forgiveness and eternal salvation if they give, and threaten them with eternal damnation if they don't, you'll learn very quickly how to build your own megachurch and work your way into the halls of government."

The Pardoner chuckled. "Of course, because these people are hypocrites, it's only a matter of time before their misdeeds are exposed and they're run through the muck of the media. Newspapers and pundits _love_ getting their hands on righteous figures and dragging them off their pedestals. You see it every day on the news. When someone shouts about how the ‘liberal media’ is going after their favorite pastor, you can be sure their favorite pastor’s done something to deserve every bit of news coverage. By that time, though, I'm already gone, moving on to the next town with my traveling salvation show, richer and with new stories that I can use on people to turn their guilt into my profits."

"Now, the story I have to tell you is about greed. You can choose whether you want to listen or not. You can tell yourself, 'Hell, this man just admitted on national television that he preys on innocent people's fears for his own gain.' But if you do, I have one question for you: Who would you trust to tell you a story about avarice — a man who claims to be holy but is just as sinful as you or I, or a man who admits his own sins and has seen the worst of what self-righteous people do when they think nobody is watching?"

It was at this point the Host realized the charming Southern accent the Pardoner had been using up to this point had slipped away completely, bit by bit. The Host shivered at the assumptions he had made about the Pardoner. How easily he had been fooled about what kind of man the Pardoner was.

"Now," the Pardoner said, "how many of you in the audience have read or seen the Harry Potter books?"

Some of the audience members raised their hands. The Pardoner chuckled.

"In the places where I ply my trade, just saying the words 'Harry Potter' would get a child thrust before me by a hysterical parent hoping to 'cleanse Satan's mark' from their eternal soul. To admit to having read them would be tantamount to screaming 'Hail Lucifer, my Lord and Master' in the middle of the Sunday sermon. And yet, every public librarian I talked to in those towns told me quite cheerily that all seven of those books had very good circulation, even if there were the occasional church protests to have to wade through. You can’t stop a good story, or even a popular one."

The Pardoner grinned, but there was no mirth in his smile.

"Of course, those of you familiar with most works of Literature know that there's more than enough awful things to go around. Knights, for example, seem to think that it's a good idea to cut off a guy's head when he's promised that the one who strikes the blow will receive a similar one in kind a year later. And that's before his wife offers sexual favors to the knight. Everyone reads Dante for the description of Hell and what the residents are being tortured by these days, since only scholars and college students ever talk about the political figures there. Purgatory and Paradise are boring by comparison. And Shakespeare! Murder, avarice, cuckolding, and plenty of other sins! But no, a story about a young boy who goes off to have a boarding school adventure at a magical place is the work of the Devil. Like those role-playing games Jack Chick couldn't get enough of."

The Pardoner chuckled to himself, visibly shifting from the routine of the fire-and-brimstone preacher to the affable middle-aged man before the audience's eyes.

"For those of you with good enough memories, or who own the materials and know exactly where to go, Hermione Granger takes time in the seventh book to explain the origins and legends of artifacts called the Deathly Hallows. I'd like to say that my story inspired that one, but Robert Galbraith has more money and lawyers than I do. If you know that story, this one will sound familiar. It's not exactly the same, but they both do turn out similarly."

What might have been the first genuine smile graced the Pardoner's face as he began.

"This is a story of three brothers in arms – Not necessarily soldiers or military men, but three men who decided they would band together against the world and say No to the changing society around them. If you wanted to give them names, you could call them Jerry, Joel, and Jack.

"These three men, while enjoying a drink, learn that one of their own, Pat, if you like, has gone on from this life to his heavenly reward."

The Pardoner placed his hands together in a gesture of prayer for a moment, solemnly looking heavenward as he did.

"After drinking quite a bit to their friend's memory, the three think they've discovered the ultimate solution to the world's problems: all they have to do is go pick a fight with Death and win, and then nobody will have to fear what happens after life ends, because everyone will have everlasting life. They've got the power of Jesus on their side, as good Christian men, so it shouldn't be all that hard to convince Death to submit to the power of Christ, considering it’s already happened once.

"Of course, the trouble with finding an anthropomorphic concept is that they're everywhere and nowhere. Most people would realize that they can’t go kill something that doesn’t already exist. Liquor, however, makes a lot of ideas make sense that people would laugh off if they were sober. These three manage to conclude, with logic and alcohol in equal measure, that the most likely place to find Death is to go where death happens most often. Any guesses on where they went, knowing that these are most holy and learned men?"

"Compton," someone shouted from the audience. The Pardoner laughed.

"Close," he said, still smiling. "Chicago.

"So these three men, full of themselves and their liquor, get on planes and fly to Chicago, looking for the 'roughest' neighborhood they can, drinking all the way to keep their courage up. Most of the people they talk to blow them off as drunk racists, once they know for certain they're not carrying guns, that is. This is the time before Stand Your Ground, though, so some people were more willing to engage them than they might have otherwise. One family is brave enough to call the cops on them, and thankfully, a squad car comes by and picks them up to put them in the drunk tank for the night. While they're sitting in the back seat of a patrol car, though, instead of thanking God they aren't hurt, they're too busy thinking how unjust it is that they've been arrested by a Mexican officer. One of them even says that if he were sober, he'd teach that wet--”

The Pardoner stopped, realizing what he was about to say, and took a moment to compose himself before continuing.

“I apologize,” he said, clearing his throat. “Sometimes, part of getting to know your audience is getting to know their prejudices. If you want to be seen as one of them, you sometimes have to use language that is otherwise inappropriate for polite society.

“One of the three men says to the officer that he’s going to teach him a lesson about respecting his betters. This goes on for the entire ride back to the local jail. Once they get a clearer look at the officer, who was white, but who had just gotten back from a vacation and was still bronzed from the sun, you can imagine, if you like, anti-Semitic, homophobic, 'race traitor', anti-liberal and anti-atheist slurs being thrown about casually by all three, who believed that God would never raise a fellow white man’s hand against them on their holy mission.

"Since this is a network program, I'd just get beeped if I gave specifics. When telling this story to scare the righteous, though, the slurs are left in, uncensored, because hypocrites love it when someone says the words they want to but feel like they can't."

The Pardoner shrugged and took a drink, as if this were the end of his tale. The Host and a few members of the audience exhaled the breath they hadn't realized they were holding, feeling the beginning of relief...

And then the Pardoner spoke again.

"This would be where most stories end, with the three men laughing off their drunken antics when they sober up in the morning — believing they would never do something like that again. Until the next time they go drinking, that is. If they felt like it, maybe they'd talk to the minister about what the other two did on the trip and try to sound like they were good Christian men."

"These three, however, _were_ good Christian men, and they heard on the news in a bar not long after their release that La Muerta had struck again."

The Pardoner shook his head sadly.

"Had the news anchors not translated for them, those three men might not have paid any more attention. But when the news tells you that Death has struck in the place where you are, well, how can you resist that kind of invitation? They took it as a sign, but not as a warning, and started following police officers and anyone they thought looked like a criminal to find La Muerta and see if he truly was the Death they were looking to kill. They thought of themselves as angels, doing God's work, even as they engaged in as much brutality and murder as they could. At least until the bullets, the booze, and then the money ran out. But they went to church every Sunday, and praised Jesus and sang hymns, and so they believed it was all okay, even encouraged."

"You know how it is, though: consequences catch up with all of us eventually. They thought it would be a good idea to get cash by robbing a place they heard had gang and drug money hidden, but there wasn't any. Just a woman with the forethought to protect herself and some engineering know-how. The details aren't important, but essentially she set them up in such a way that if one of them moved, the other two would experience a lot of pain. They figured that part out pretty quickly. And the next part, which was that each of them could get themselves free of they were willing to put the other two in pain. Now, knowing that these are good Christian men doing God's work on earth, I'm sure you know how this story ends."

The Pardoner drank again, nearly draining the bottle.

"Just as you might expect, all three of them fought for themselves. It took the police several months before they found the bodies."

The Pardoner finished his bottle of water in front of the shocked faces of the audience before grinning at them again.

"Now, those three men were very confident they'd met their Lord and Savior at the gates of heaven, so they seemed a bit surprised when the woman who had been in the house met them at the gates of a very different place. It turns out they had finally found what they were looking for all long, but it was far too late now for it to do them any good. And the screams they made in Hell were far, far worse than the screams they'd made in life."

The Pardoner clasped his hands together and bowed to the audience, who sat without moving.

"Now," he said, "if you'd be so kind, applause is customary for such a story. And if not, well, I'm sure that plenty of you are considering your own sins in life right now. Come forth and confess and I will heal you of your sins and your worries about the afterlife! Absolution and protection from Death and Hell is only a little bit away!" 

Turning to the Host, he smiled broadly. "What do you say, Host? Be the first to be _healed_ from this grisly fate."

The Host recovered enough to throw to a commercial before too much time passed in silence. Once clear of the broadcast, the Host returned his attention to the Pardoner.

Having noticed the accent's return,  
the Host gave a slight cough.  
Eyes narrowed, he uttered  
but two words: "Fuck off."


	2. What Woman Wanted?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wife tells a tale of men behaving badly.

"Welcome back to Around The Campfire, the show that pits your stories to our votes, all in pursuit of a cash prize. We just had quite a tale, didn’t we?” the Host said, smiling at the cameras after the commercials were done. “Sometimes live television has some interesting implications, but you deserve stories as they are told, without editing tricks and without additional takes. If that makes a little more work for our ombuds office, we think the ratings are worth it!"

Turning to the other camera, he turned up the wattage of his smile. 

"Our next storyteller comes to us all the way from Bath, where she lives as a homemaker. Let's all give a warm welcome to our Wife of Bath!"

A woman wearing a dress printed with van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and hair that mirrored the colors of her dress stepped onto the stage. The colorful clothes rested on a very muscular frame, suggesting that anyone who thought the Wife was frail or inexperienced would be wrong.

"Hello," she said, looking out at the audience. "I thought it might be prudent to follow on from the last story, one supposedly about greed, with one supposedly about hypocrisy."

Some of the audience laughed, understanding the connection.

"Now, I'm certainly not a saint myself — I've been married five times, and each time it was to someone older than me who thought I'd make a great trophy wife. A couple of them were even in polyamorous relationships, although they didn't do a great job about making sure everyone was informed of this.

"I've lived my share of life in the same kinds of towns the last storyteller talked about. I've been the subject of Lord knows how much gossip. 'Oh my God, she divorced her husband!'" the Wife said, making a passable imitation of pearl-clutching as she did.

"Yep, sure did. Thought he could cheat on me with his secretary. Turns out she didn't like him much, either. One got rid of me because he wanted to be a priest, and it wouldn't do having a wife when you go to the seminary. Oh, the gossip that followed there — what kind of woman drives a man from happy matrimony to celibate priesthood?"

The Wife of Bath smiled a little too broadly to be genuine, but she did seem to be enjoying herself more than the Pardoner Had when he smiled.

"Let's just say I got very familiar with Hall and Oates," she said, chuckling. "In plenty of those towns and their churches, you would have thought I needed to strap a scarlet letter between my thighs, just so that the supposedly godly men of the town would be warned away from me. Every wife in town imagined their husband would jump into bed with me if I looked at him. Some of those wives wished they could jump into bed with me instead. A couple did. But I was always under a cloud of suspicion wherever I went, blamed for the wandering eyes of husbands when they were having affairs at the office or during church functions."

The Wife of Bath waggled her eyebrows suggestively at the crowd in a mock-sexy fashion.

"That's how I meant husband number four, although we were never legally married. Oh, I always knew what I was getting into. The boys wanted someone to hang off their arm and make the other boys jealous. And for that, they made sure that I could live comfortably. They'd curse and swear and proclaim I was bleeding them dry, or that I was such a sweet woman before they married me but now I was just evil. They thought they could be married and just keep doing what they were doing before, and that I wouldn't make them pay for it dearly, every time."

The Wife of Bath sat on the stool provided for the storytellers and sighed.

"It’s probably ironic, to be following someone who made money telling people they didn’t have to do anything about their hypocrisy but throw money at it. Serves them right, though. They wanted everything, and believed they could get it.

“At least until my fifth husband, anyway. He certainly wasn't a hypocrite — he believed every bit of 'wives should submit to their husbands,' and he had the temper to match it."

The Wife pulled up a sleeve of her dress, just enough to expose a semicolon tattoo on her wrist to the camera.

"He always made me believe it was my fault. And that he loved me. I tried so hard to be his perfect wife, even though he had every horrible idea and story at his fingertips about how women were evil, right from Eve on, and the only way a woman could be saved was by being punished every time she stepped out of line."

"We went to church all the time, and to faith healers, and retreats, and I had to be made up just so — a perfect wife who never spoke to anyone without his permission, who never left his side, and who always had to go up and confess to the worst things I had done. He made me believe that everything I did that wasn't exactly what he wanted was 'allowing Satan into my heart.' I had become one of the women that I mocked so mercilessly earlier in my life."

The Wife of Bath smiled and chuckled.

"And then one day, well, I snapped. Remember that Blu Cantrell song? The one about what you do when you discover your man is cheating on you? Yeah. I got my hands on his cash and spent it to the last dime for all the hard times, because I had caught my holier-than-thou husband in bed with another woman. There aren’t enough faith healers in the world that can save you from that. 

"So you know that I've been around all sorts of guys who think they're God's gift to women, and plenty more that have been told that to their faces. Many of those dudes will be nice and polite to you while there are witnesses around, while they plot a way to take you. Whether by charm, GHB, or force."

"This could be a true story, except that it starts with one of these dudes actually getting convicted and sentenced for what he did when he thought nobody was looking."

"Amen, sister," shouted back one of the women in the audience.

"But because he's a good ol' boy with connections and good lawyers, instead of prison time the judge sentences him to a rehabilitation program where he has to sit in class for hours while a woman lectures him about consent and other things he's not going to listen to, instead watching her ass and trying to figure out what pick-up line to use on her.

"In one of the rare times that he's actually listening, she tells all of them that the only way they get to avoid serving out their prison sentences is if they can convince her that they understand what she's talking about. So she assigns them homework — to figure out what women want from their relationships. And to make it have consequences, she tells them that each of them only gets one shot at answering the question. If they get it wrong, they go straight to prison. And they can't stall forever — at least one of them has to try and answer the question every time they meet."

The Wife of Bath took a drink and smiled at the audience, who were listening more carefully now.

"Realizing he's fucked, figuratively and, in his own mind, likely anally, if he can't get a good answer, this guy goes off in search of his answer. His first mistake is that he spent a lot of time asking other dudes, after he believed they were his bros and would sympathize with his plight. Any woman would have told him the answer straight away...if he had asked nicely." The Wife of Bath winked at the cameras. "And if she felt like he would actually listen, which wasn't going to happen with this dude, because he couldn't keep his eyes — or his hands — off of a woman long enough to demonstrate he deserved a small amount of trust."

"He has been listening, at least, to the other answers his prison-bound friends have been giving, and so he knows what it _isn't_. The problem is, all the ideas that he's had or the things he's been told have been things those other dudes have tried, and none of them have worked. And it's his turn next, because he's been there the longest, and if nobody volunteers, that's who gets picked. 

"Figuring he should enjoy himself before he goes to prison, he sets himself up for a one-night stand hanging out at the local bar, but the only woman in the entire place is a dog. A total zero, the kind of person that he would want to put a paper bag over her head just so as not to look at her. But, he figures, pussy is pussy, and ugly chicks often fall for anyone who pays them any sort of attention."

The Wife chuckled, in anticipation of a punchline yet to come.

"She knows who he is and what he's been convicted of, so she's ready to embarrass him thoroughly before blowing him off, when some small chunk of humanity gets out before he can begin his player routine and he seems to genuinely ask her what women want. He talks about he needs to go to church before he goes to prison and get forgiveness, so that his soul is clear when he goes in, and about the horrors he imagines waiting for him in prison when he gets there, and then, right at the end, he says that he hopes the victim will forgive him for what he did, because he’s sorry about it. Not sorry in ‘sorry that you caused me an inconvenience and took me away from what I deserve’, but a genuine apology and show of remorse for what happened.”  
“This is an intriguing enough change from his previous behavior that she decides to talk with him more. It's pretty clear to her that he's asking mostly because he's afraid of receiving what he did to women without a second thought, but there’s a glimmer of something else in there, a hole in his persona. There might be just a little bit of genuine fear of God to go along with the fear of showering with men. An idea springs into her head."

The Wife smiled and rubbed her hands together in imitation of many a televised evil genius.

"She says she'll help him on two conditions — first, she has to be there when he gives his answer, and second, she gets to call in any favor she wants from him if it keeps him out of prison. This wasn't the kind of place where you could openly talk kinky, so she couldn't have just said 'be my slave for the duration of this contract' and gotten the message across. He has to stop himself several times from calling her a bitch, a ball-buster, and several other words, for not giving the man what he asked for when he demanded it. Because a woman's duty is to please any man that deigns to talk to her," the Wife said, rolling her eyes and displaying mirrored upraised fingers at the concept.

"She can see this war playing out in his face and body, but he manages to get himself back under control and grit out his agreement to her terms. He makes sure she has access to the next meeting as a guest, and right before he goes in, she tells him what he wants to know. It's everything that he has supposedly been learning in this probationary class, but she provides the secret sauce — how to say it in a way that would convince the teacher he had learned and believed it. She knows, though, that if he doesn’t actually believe it, even just a little, there’s no way he’s going to convince anyone else.” 

""Women', he said, as softly as he could, 'want to be equal. To have their own money, their own opinions, and to be able to live their lives without a man, if they don't want one. They want to be on top, they want to choose if they have children, or get married, or even if they want to have sex. Women want consent and respect from everyone, and pockets in their clothes. Women want God to stop telling them they’re less and men to start telling them they’re more than just body parts. Women want a genuine apology, but even more, they want men to stop doing things they need to apologize for in the first place.’

“Dude sat down to silence. He thought he might have made it after all, but the instructor squished that idea before it could go too far.

"'That sounds like an answer,'" she said, 'except for the part where I could barely hear you. _Again, and louder,_ so that everyone else here can benefit from what you've learned.'"

"So he says it again, loud enough for everyone to hear. Every other guy in the class starts laughing at him, making whip-cracking noises at him, and telling him that he’s going to be fun for everyone in prison. The instructor seems to be taking her time at making a decision, and taking in the reaction of the room. Finally, she tells him to sit the fuck down so they can continue with the lesson, and that he can come see her afterward to find out what she thought about it.

“‘If I were you, I’d drop that macho act of yours,’ she told him. ‘Because if you keep with it, the next time you get arrested for something like this, you’re going straight to prison. I don’t want to see you here again. Ever.’”

Some members of the audience broke into spontaneous applause. The Wife of Bath waited and stared at them with a disbelieving eye.

“Story doesn’t end there,” she said. “Maybe in the movies, where they roll the credits and you believe that he’s learned his lesson and won’t be doing anything like that ever again. It’s tempting, but hypocrisy doesn’t work like that. Real life doesn’t work like that.

"So this dude’s on cloud nine, and thinking about going out with his buddies to celebrate, but the woman who helped him get there isn't done with lessons yet. 'I'm calling in my favor,' she says. 'You're going on a date with me tonight. And you're not leaving until I'm satisfied.'

"'No fucking way,' he says. 'I’m going to celebrate my freedom tonight, and I’m not doing it with someone like you.’

“‘You owe me,’ she said in return. ‘If it wasn’t for me, then you wouldn’t have a night to celebrate with your friends. You agreed to one favor, and this is it.’

“‘No.” he said. ‘We can figure out something. I can pay you. I can set you up with a friend of mine, if you really want, but don't make me be seen with you. Don't make me pretend that I like you.'

'Oh?' said the instructor, poking her head outside the door. 'You're telling me that all of that was a lie?' she said, smiling at him. You know the one, where the cat has the mouse cornered. 'My recommendation isn’t filed yet. If you want to ditch her so badly, I can help you with that.'

The Wife of Bath demonstrated the grin she had just described. Several members of the audience, as well as the Host, fidgeted nervously.

"Dude knows when he's been caught. So he goes on the date, like he promised. And, as you might guess, is pissed off at the whole thing, internally bitching about having an ugly hag as a date, who is pretty clearly enjoying ordering the expensive things to stick it to him. And making him go buy fresh condoms so that as many people can see them together as possible.

"When they get back to her place, she goes to freshen up, and a hottie steps out from the bathroom a little while later. Toned in all the right places, bouncy tits, firm ass, essentially a wet dream for any teenager. By this point, though, the dude is suspicious, and wants to know if this new hotness is the roommate or someone else and his date is still in the bathroom.

"'You never asked what my hobbies are while we were on our date, asshole,' she says, 'or else you would have learned that I do effects makeup. I was testing out a new makeup for a theater group when you came up and told me your sob story. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to teach you some humility. This is what I actually look like, and believe me, it gets old having men stare at you like you are right now. I think, with a lot of work, and getting rid of all that macho bullshit, we could turn you into a decent human being. It's the only reason I decided to help you. But I know that you’ve still got a lot of issues to work through before you’re ready for that. So, I've got a deal for you. I’m going to make one of your wildest dreams come true. You can either have a hottie on your arm all the time, or you can date someone who’s going to stick to your side for as long as you keep trying to be a good man.'

"Now, this dude wasn't anywhere near woke, but the last time she’d offered him a deal, he’d had to go on a date with her ugly self. He gets smart and asks her what the catch is.  
“‘If you want a hottie on your arm wherever you go, I'm going to sleep with anyone that I think is cute, if I can get away with them long enough to fuck,’ she told him. ‘If you want a loyal woman who’s going to stick to you, you’re going to have to get over yourself enough, and take all the razzing that’s going to come with it, to date an ugly dog.’ 

"All night, he went back and forth about whether he wanted a pretty girl or a loyal one. Many times, he told her he couldn't decide. She told him that wasn't an answer. Just before dawn, after they'd both been satisfied and she was ready to kick him out, he finally engaged his brain and _thought_ about everything that had happened up to this point."

The Wife of Bath paused for a moment, allowing the audience to think about everything up to this point as well, encouraging them to find a conclusion that would be satisfactory to everyone.  
"Figured it out? If you haven’t, there’s only one thing I can tell you to help. You’ve already heard the right answer. Were you paying enough attention to realize it?"

The Wife bowed to the audience, signaling the end of her tale, and was met with applause varying from polite to whistling enthusiasm. The Host came on long enough to get to a commercial break, and offered to escort her off the stage.

Spoke Host to Wife, as the break began,  
"Does this tale have happy end?"  
Said Wife, with a smile both innocent and not,   
"How much faith do you have in men?"

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to those that looked over, made commentary, and helped me shape this work into what it is. All the bad stuff is my fault, all the good stuff is their credit.


End file.
